The most emminent danger from a fire in a multi-story building is lack of suitable air for breathing when one is trapped in the building and cannot escape before rescue. While some serious injuries or deaths result from heat injury, most serious injuries and deaths resulting from a multi-story building fire are from smoke inhalation, consequent lung damage, and insufficient life-sustaining oxygen due to being trapped in an area of the building that does not contain suitable air for breathing.
Tannatta U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,975 discloses apparatus capable of being attached to a sink pipe, downstream of a water trap in the sink, to gain access to the building plumbing system vent lines. A serious drawback of this apparatus is that the sink pipe, downstream of the water trap, must be structurally modified in order to attach the apparatus for access to the plumbing vent lines. Another drawback to the device of the Tannatta patent is that it is not capable of pumping the plumbing vent line gases to the user of the device to insure an adequate supply of suitable oxygen to the user, but relies upon the lungs of the user to cause a flow of plumbing vent line gas to the user's lungs. These and other disadvantages are overcome in accordance with the apparatus and method of the present invention.